The Day Of The Triffids Study Guide
Chapter One
After missing an historic ‘meteor shower’ due having his eyes bandaged in hospital, Bill Masen wakes to discover that the world is in a state of disarray. It is clear that the so called meteor shower has left all who saw it blind. The author hints that there is more carnage to come with the use of foreshadowing.
“It is not easy to think oneself back to the outlook of those days…there was so much routine…and all the more disturbing, therefore, when the routine was in any way upset” pg 16.
“The place looked – well, you’ll have seen one of Dore’s pictures of sinners in hell.” pg 21.
“There was nothing to be heard – nothing but the rustle of a dirty newspaper blown down the empty street. Such a quietness held everything as cannot have been known in those parts for a thousand years or more.” pg 23.
Chapter Two
In this chapter we are provided with Bill’s own personal history, where we learn that he is a biologist who has been concerned about triffids for many years. We are told that this is “a personal record” pg 25 and this helps to include the reader.
The author also hints at what has happened to the world by reflecting on what once was: “The world we lived in then was wide, and most of it was open to us, with little trouble. Roads, railways, and shipping lines laced it, ready to carry one thousands of miles safely in comfort. If we wanted to travel more swiftly still, and could afford it, we travelled by aeroplane. There was no need for anyone to take weapons or even precautions in those days…A world so tamed sounds utopian now” pg 27.
There are also hints about ecological tampering such as genetic modification of crops, the Cold War with the Soviet Union and the use of and development of biological weapons.
“They were the outcome of a series of ingenious biological meddlings” pg 27
“that plant, intended to be kept secret, could come, quite suddenly, to be found in almost every part of the world”
After missing an historic ‘meteor shower’ due having his eyes bandaged in hospital, Bill Masen wakes to discover that the world is in a state of disarray. It is clear that the so called meteor shower has left all who saw it blind. The author hints that there is more carnage to come with the use of foreshadowing.
“It is not easy to think oneself back to the outlook of those days…there was so much routine…and all the more disturbing, therefore, when the routine was in any way upset” pg 16.
“The place looked – well, you’ll have seen one of Dore’s pictures of sinners in hell.” pg 21.
“There was nothing to be heard – nothing but the rustle of a dirty newspaper blown down the empty street. Such a quietness held everything as cannot have been known in those parts for a thousand years or more.” pg 23.
Chapter Two
In this chapter we are provided with Bill’s own personal history, where we learn that he is a biologist who has been concerned about triffids for many years. We are told that this is “a personal record” pg 25 and this helps to include the reader.
The author also hints at what has happened to the world by reflecting on what once was: “The world we lived in then was wide, and most of it was open to us, with little trouble. Roads, railways, and shipping lines laced it, ready to carry one thousands of miles safely in comfort. If we wanted to travel more swiftly still, and could afford it, we travelled by aeroplane. There was no need for anyone to take weapons or even precautions in those days…A world so tamed sounds utopian now” pg 27.
There are also hints about ecological tampering such as genetic modification of crops, the Cold War with the Soviet Union and the use of and development of biological weapons.
“They were the outcome of a series of ingenious biological meddlings” pg 27
“that plant, intended to be kept secret, could come, quite suddenly, to be found in almost every part of the world”